UPDATE: Rally in Brooklyn to Remember Jose Sucuzhanay

Yesterday, there was a rally in Brooklyn to remember Jose Sucuzhanay, the Ecuadorean immigrant beaten to death earlier this month. At the rally, elected officials, city council members, advocates, family and friends gathered to call for unity and justice.

“I just want to say to every New Yorker,” Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) said, “to government people, to personalities in the media, that words have meaning.”

Sucuzhanay’s violent death comes in the wake of a string of anti-Latino hate crimes in recent months – most notably Luis Ramirez and Marcelo Lucero. At the rally, people encouraged unity in communities and an end to the hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric that continues to fuel violence.